5E Fan Creations

The mechanisms (legal, financial, and production-wise) WotC crafted with DriveThruRPG for the Dungeon Masters Guild launched a whole new concept in our hobby and industry. Community created content has always been a part of gaming (see the Perrin Conventions of 1976), but never has the concept been so well-supported - encouraged, even - to include the capacity for fans to actually earn money for the things they create in support of their favorite systems and settings. This week was a celebration of that rather powerful set of tools.
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Today we go looking through the bard's backpack while they are off wooing crowds and taking requests for lovebirds. Expecting a host of romantic pamphlets, we find instead a small collection of useful notes that make for a good read. Tricky those bards are, they probably took the saucy bits with them. Still, you won't be disappointed by this month's selection.

So you finally slew the Kobald Lich and her minions who have been harrying the kingdom for more than a year. Bloodied but satisfied you and your companions wander over to her pile of loot and start sifting through the valuables. You find a bag full of books; apparently Ashrital, Scourge of the North was a reader. Fortunately, so are you and your eyes alight with the possibility of what strange tomes may lie within. Welcome to the DMs Guild Round Up! There has been so much material created for the Dungeon Master's Guild since its inception, so we want to spotlight some of the great works being produced. Some days it will be Random Loot (like today) and some days it will be a theme. So let's get started and dip our hand into the hoard and see what tomes await.

I'm going to stick with Theme Weeks for a while and see how that goes. As always, I'd appreciate you letting me know if you like the idea or not. If you do like it, then please feel free to suggest themes for the future! This week (which I rather imagine, like others, will recur more than once) is all about Magic, the Arcane, and how that plays into your game. Sure, there has to be a D&D-related Pick in there, but I think you'll find a pretty interesting mix of stuff across many fields here.
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Becoming more fond of Theme Weeks, I decided this week should feature 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons products. While some may feel the release schedule of official Wizards of the Coast products isn't what they're used to (or what they'd prefer), it's important to note that there's a huge amount of material for the latest edition of the World's Most Popular RPG from both established publishers and super-fans with excellent design instincts and an abiding passion for the game.
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So, some of you might have heard about this little Kickstarter I am involved in? Heh, yeah, things are a bit insane for me right now, but fear not! The Picks of the Week march on, and I've got some good ones for you. Have some troubles figuring out a good backstory for your favorite character? There's a great product designed specifically to help you. Want to explore publishing that really cool stuff you've created for Cypher, D&D, Cortex, or Traveller? There's a new venue and set of tools just for that! All that, and the world of Earth AD, the old school Black Hack, and the infinity of the Suzerain Continuum as well!
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This was a huge week for D&D fans (especially those who fancy the 5th Edition), and especially for anyone who has a desire to create and share 5e-driven content, whether as a fan, would-be new publisher, or an established house. The Dungeon Masters Guild - a joint venture between Wizards of the Coast and DriveThruRPG - not only provides a venue for official 5e material to come out digitally from WotC, it sets up a solid mechanism for anyone to create and share 5e material with the world. The current focus is on the Forgotten Realms, but there's little doubt other settings will eventually make their appearance (and availability for creation) on the site down the road. Parallel to this is the release of the long-awaited new OGL terms and System Reference Document for full-scale publishing operations. Understandably, there are a lot of questions about how it all works. If you're serious about doing something, do yourself a favor and read this page, top to bottom, carefully.
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Welcome to the latest edition of my D&D fan creation compilation, where I scour the web so you don't have to. And then get mean emails from people whose stuff I didn't see. Anyway, this time I have a 40-page adventure, a new fanzine, random mundane treasure, a way for rogues to be James Bond, and a whole new take on alignments. Enjoy!
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Welcome to the latest in my series of D&D 5E fan created content compilations, where I scour the web so you don't have to! I'm off to Italy for a long weekend tomorrow, so I thought I'd squeeze this in first. This time I have specialty priests, alternate crafting rules, artisan toolkits, magic items, and more!
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Welcome back to the Top 10ish Best Reads of the Month! After an unfortunate layover for March due to computer issues that slowed me down substantially and that ended up utterly destroying my entire database of rpg blogs. So I spent the better part of the last two months rebuilding my rpg blog database to 380 active blogs and reading nearly 5,400 blog posts!

Yet another installment of my D&D 5E fan content roundups, where I scour the web so you don't have to! This time, I have found some Oriental Adventures themed pieces, Marvel's Avengers-themed character builds and weapons, revised exploration rules, new creatures, 9 new character sheets, and the One Death & Dismemberment Table to Rule Them All. Remember, I do these every month or so, so click here for them all.
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Welcome to another of my D&D 5E community creations and fan content lists, where I scour the internet so that you don't have to. I have over a dozen of these lists now, so for the rest click on the "5E Fan Creations" link just above. Today I have new character sheets, Fate-style zones, a couple of takes on psionics, a comprehensive-looking DM-tool, a vampire-leprechaun, a few spreadsheets and encounter builders, a pile of murderhobos, some new races and minigames, a 10-foot pole, and much, much more!
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A few people asked, so I've hunted down all of the D&D 5E fan resource lists I've made (turns out I've made 11 such lists since July 2014). In total I've listed somewhere in the region of 250 blog posts, PDFs, free adventures, backgrounds, monsters, house rules, and more (or 1,250, depending how you choose to count them). I hope you enjoy this series and find it useful! I'll keep doing it as long as folks read it!
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Welcome to yet another installment of my D&D 5th Edition fan and community content roundup where I scour the internet so you don't have to! Today I have for you three free adventures, a conversion of the old Star Frontiers RPG from TSR, a bunch of new mounts, and a tool for creating dungeon maps, along with articles on fighter options, a witch class with supporting material, and a couple of new monsters ready for your 5E game! 13 new items in total!
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Welcome to my latest roundup of D&D 5th Edition community creations, where I scour the web so you don't have to! As ever, the wider D&D 5E community has been industrious. This time I have some GM Quick Sheets for dungeon dressing and magic item descriptions, mass combat rules, more D&D Basic monster illustrations, some initiative houserules, 3 character sheets, 7 backgrounds, 7 monsters, 12 spells, 6 feats, 7 races, 11 archetypes, and a partridge in a pear trea. Plus my favourite entry, a set of awesome condition cards!
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Welcome to another installment of my D&D 5th Edition fan creation roundups, where I scour the web so you don't have to. This time around, I've found aquatic and oriental campaign options, a new Injury condition, thoughts on a setting based on the Americas, and a look at a couple of monsters- the Choker and the Nothic.
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As is my habit, I regularly scour the web for interesting fan-created D&D 5th Edition content so that you don't have to. Here's what I managed to find this time - an adventure, dragon-sickness from The Hobbit, a pile of magic items, and even some for-sale adventures!
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Reviews

Wizards of the Coast is promoting Ghosts of Saltmarsh as an adventure book with a setting and rule supplements so since I already did a spoiler-free review of the book overall, let's take a closer look at the adventures it contains. While I avoid significant spoilers, be aware that broad information about each adventure is mentioned.

The Shadowrun Sixth World Beginner Box due for release at Origins this June will be our first look at the new edition of the now 30-year-old Shadowrun game system. This new edition promises to be a more streamlined experience for new players while still satisfying veterans, but does it live up to that promise?

Ghosts of Saltmarsh will make Greyhawk fans happy without losing newer D&D 5th Edition players. Billed as a supplement for nautical adventures, it's a mix of new rules for ships and sea travel, adventures and supplemental material for any coastal campaign.

Sequels can be a tricky thing to handle, especially when they promise a darker, edgier tone. Despite its much gloomier tone, however, Things from the Flood manages to avoid difficult-second-album syndrome with a game that neatly blends weird sci-fi mysteries and teenage drama, though sometimes it’s hard to tell which aspect is the most dangerous and unsettling.

Gangs kill and terrorize Victory City overwhelming law and order. Super villains run amok. Become a vigilante and strike back using violence to fight violence in the dark setting nicknamed Vigilante City.